In the winter of 1965, writer Gay Talese arrived in Los Angeles with an assignment from Esquire to profile Frank Sinatra.

The legendary singer was approaching fifty, under the weather, out of sorts, and unwilling to be interviewed. A., hoping Sinatra might recover and reconsider, and he began talking to many of the people around Sinatra—his friends, his associates, his family, his countless hangers-onand observing the man himself wherever he could.